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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Form fitting body armor

Posted by: Prime Mover Mar 12 2007, 01:24 AM

Was going over grunt stats and gear in bbb and noticed some wearing "Form Fitting body armor". No such armor in gear section, Frank recently mentioned somthing in hardened armor thread about armor jacket being combined with form fitting and forearm guards. So guessing form fitting less then jacket more on lines of chameleon suit.

Any other references out there im missing?

Posted by: Alex Mar 12 2007, 01:27 AM

Previous editions mostly. I am looking for it in a future source book.

Posted by: Backgammon Mar 12 2007, 01:34 AM

Form Fitting Armour, or Munchkin Armour as I (and probably many other GMs) call it, was armour that you could wear under any other type of armour without any sort of penalty. It was cheap, available, an without drawback.

Posted by: Prime Mover Mar 12 2007, 01:38 AM

Came along in first edition with street sami book, the first laser and mini gun oh my! Players hated me that day. Some still shake when I make that whiring noise! muwahahaha

Posted by: Luddite Mar 12 2007, 01:41 AM

Yes, it's obviously munchkin armor because it's good.

Posted by: Jack Kain Mar 12 2007, 02:06 AM

How I'd rule is form fitting body armor have an Avail +4, And costs twice as much as normal.
Take the armor value and -2 when calculating encumbrance and ONLY encumbrance.

For example, the hacker with a body of 3 could wear a line duster 6/4 with out penalty. He would however suffer penalties when wearing an Armor Jacket 8/6.
(I'm not going to look these up right now read the book yourself)

If the Armor Jacket is form fitting then he could wear it fine with a body of 3.

Form Fitting body armor rarely fits anyone but the intended wearer. If someone else puts on the armor the suffer the encumbrance penalty and in some cases it may not fit at all. (such as a troll trying to put on armor form fitting for a human)

Now as it applies in the grunts section you could wear form fitting full body armor with out penalty with a body of 4.

Posted by: djinni Mar 12 2007, 02:34 AM

QUOTE (Jack Kain)

How I'd rule is form fitting body armor have an Avail +4, And costs twice as much as normal.
Take the armor value and -2 when calculating encumbrance and ONLY encumbrance.

don't call it "form fitting" call it "Tailored" because that's what you are doing...tailoring it to the person.
Form fitting armor is like cat woman's suit...it's "form" "fitting"

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 12 2007, 02:38 AM

Ah, form fitting 3.
Shadowrunner longjohns

Posted by: Glyph Mar 12 2007, 03:24 AM

Of course, there may not be much point to it any longer, now that they have changed the armor layering rules so that only the highest value applies.

Posted by: Eryk the Red Mar 12 2007, 03:29 AM

There'd be as much a point to it as there ever was. Assuming they follow the same design concept, they would just exempt the form-fitting armor from the layering restrictions, meaning that it's cumulative with other worn armor. It's like dermal plating that you wear!

Posted by: KarmaInferno Mar 12 2007, 04:50 AM

QUOTE (Luddite)

Yes, it's obviously munchkin armor because it's good.

No, it was munchkin armor because it let you bypass the normal rules to your benefit, without any real balancing drawback.

No, it wasn't a MAJORLY unbalancing thing, but it was munchy.

-karma

Posted by: Narmio Mar 12 2007, 05:33 AM

It wasn't that it was a munchkin thing to do, it was that it was a stupid thing *not* to do.

The emergence of those rules basically meant "add 2 to the armour of all shadowrunners."

I vote ditch the "layering". Form-fitting armour can be what it should be: slightly-less-effective armour that you can wear under anything short of a bikini and get away with it.

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 12 2007, 07:20 AM

QUOTE (Narmio)

I vote ditch the "layering". Form-fitting armour can be what it should be: slightly-less-effective armour that you can wear under anything short of a bikini and get away with it.

Shouldn't that be a vote for the SR4 rules of layering, and a vote against the special layering rule for Form Fitting?

Posted by: yoippari Mar 12 2007, 08:08 AM

I'd vote for slightly more complex layering rules to allow for some common sense ruling like GURPS.

QUOTE (GURPS)

You can freely combine multiple pieces of armor that don't cover the same hit location, but you can only layer armor if the inner layer is both flexible and concealable. Add the DR of both layers. Wearing multiple layers of armor anywhere but the head gives -1 to DX and DX-based skills.

So basicly if it makes sense you can layer armor but take a -1 to agility.

Posted by: Jack Kain Mar 12 2007, 08:13 AM

QUOTE (yoippari)

I'd vote for slightly more complex layering rules to allow for some common sense ruling like GURPS.

QUOTE (GURPS)

So basicly if it makes sense you can layer armor but take a -1 to agility.

Better to make it to reaction and agility

Posted by: Luddite Mar 12 2007, 08:14 AM

I'd just have it cost about 2000 and add +1 to the ballistic value of any non-security armor. I never bought that it would provide impact.

Posted by: 6thDragon Mar 12 2007, 10:58 AM

Ah, memories of the broken aspects of SR3. Those where the days when you could layer form-fitting, armored clothing, and an armored jacket, throw on some forearm guards and a helmet. If you really wanted to go over the top you could grab a ballistic shield and sustain a armor spell.

Posted by: Aaron Mar 12 2007, 11:36 AM

QUOTE (Prime Mover)

Was going over grunt stats and gear in bbb and noticed some wearing "Form Fitting body armor".

Um ... where did you see that?

It's actually my opinion that the "form-fitting body armor" is now called an Armor Vest, which is "designed to be worn under regular clothing without displaying any bulk." (Boyle et al. 315) However, I expect that we'll be seeing something called "Form-Fitting Body Armor" in Arsenal, although with any luck, the rules for it will not be munchy.

Posted by: Prime Mover Mar 12 2007, 12:45 PM

QUOTE (Aaron)

QUOTE (Prime Mover @ Mar 11 2007, 08:24 PM)

Was going over grunt stats and gear in bbb and noticed some wearing "Form Fitting body armor".

Dont have book in front of me right now but think it was Tir Ghosts in grunts section.

Posted by: Jaymes Mar 12 2007, 12:49 PM

It would be cool if in Arsenal they define Form Fitting Body Armor to be something similar to:

http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2006/15201.html

Posted by: nathanross Mar 12 2007, 02:38 PM

I need some kind of form fitting full body suit to pair with my tracless walk and wall running for a perfectly silent break in.

Posted by: kigmatzomat Mar 12 2007, 03:22 PM

The irony is that modern armor works better when it is form fitting. SR4 armor seems to be "soft" armor (unplated). Unless it is phase-change armor that goes from fabric to "plate" automatically, it will need bracing.

Let's think of a kevlar t-shirt that can't be penetrated by any pistol round. Bob wears his loose fitting, Steve wears his tight. Bob gets shot by a .45. The bullet strikes the kevlar and immediately begins to take up the slack. Being a loose fit, there's about 4 inches of slack, whereupon the .45 and the kevlar are drive 4" into Bob's body, deep enough to puncture a lung or other organ.

Steve gets's shot by the same .45. His tight-fitting kevlar has just enough give for Steve to breath and move so call it 1" of slack. Barring a broken bone, Steve is let off with a fleshwound.

Posted by: Ed_209a Mar 12 2007, 03:43 PM

As I understand it, armor vest manufacturers use the material itself to provide some of that bracing. Most (maybe all) ballistic vests use more layers than necessary to actually stop the intended bullet, in order to reduce blunt trauma.

The US standards for body armor state that to say your armor protects from round X, it must not penetrate (duh), and must not push in the armor more than roughly 1.5 inches.

Shear thickening fluids excite me because they might allow you to get rid of the excess layers. Your kevlar fabric becomes a kevlar plate for the millisecond you need it to be.

On the other hand, having the extra layers gives you a safety margin. If you have a vest designed to protect you from .38-9mmP rounds, and you get hit by a .44 Mag, the extra layers may actually stop the round, leaving you with a few broken ribs or a bruised organ instead of a gunshot wound.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 12 2007, 06:21 PM

In tests with small patches of kevlar with and without STF vs. BB guns, I seem to remember that the STF meant a reduction in layers of about 40% while providing the same resistance to penetration. The weight remained the same, but flexibility improved a lot.

Still, using the best materials available now with STF, you'd be looking at a ballistic panel ~3.5mm thick, weighing ~1.1lbs/ft^2. It'd still be plainly visible from under tight clothing, and wouldn't fool anybody who touched it. Of course it'd also provide protection far in excess of what canon Form Fitting Body Armor did in SR3: full body level protection from nearly all combat handgun and many shotgun threats, brilliant blunt trauma protection, etc.

Posted by: Jaymes Mar 12 2007, 06:26 PM

Here are some photos showing the effectiveness of kevlar with STF:

http://www.ccm.udel.edu/STF/images1.html

Here's one where the stuff was shot with a gun:

http://www.ccm.udel.edu/STF/patent.html

If the stuff is that good in 2007, imagine what 65 years of research will have done for it . . . scary.

Posted by: WhiskeyMac Mar 13 2007, 05:46 AM

Wouldn't the sudden stiffening of the fabric have a tendency to cause knockdown more frequently?

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 13 2007, 08:21 AM

If and when people are reduced to a prone position by a gunshot, the direct cause is nearly always either damage to the neural system, damage to support structures, or psychological (e.g. pain). Hence a tiny increase in the rate of release of kinetic energy and sharing of momentum will no make no observable difference in the propability of people falling down when shot.

In fact, if STF armors tend to give way less compared to untreated flexible armor with the same resistance to penetration, and thus result in less blunt trauma, they will cause a slightly reduced tendency for people to fall down, because they are less likely to injured by, or indeed to even notice, a stopped threat.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 13 2007, 09:48 AM

QUOTE (Jaymes)

It would be cool if in Arsenal they define Form Fitting Body Armor to be something similar to:

http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2006/15201.html

AFAIR, normal SR4 armor already uses such polymer components.

Posted by: Ed_209a Mar 13 2007, 01:30 PM

QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)

AFAIR, normal SR4 armor already uses such polymer components.

I would have to agree here, but I haven't seen it in a book.

It's a good way of explaining how the two layers of Spectrashield-4 in your t-shirt can stop a 9mm with negligible blunt trauma.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 13 2007, 05:48 PM

In the general armor description, it lists 'liquid armor packs'.